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Countdown Magazine

 

 

Countdown was a British comic published weekly by Polystyle Publications – ultimately, under several different titles – from 1971 to 1973. The pages in each issue were numbered in reverse order, with page 1 at the end – a gimmick which was derived from the comic's title in order to create a "countdown" to the number one every week.

 

Under the title Countdown, the comic ran for 58 weeks, beginning with the issue cover-dated 20th February 1971. It was re-launched as TV Action + Countdown from issue 59 in 1972, dropping many of the original strips from Countdown and substituting new ones based on contemporary television programmes. After 100 issues, its title became simply TV Action. The final issue, number 132, was cover-dated 25th August 1973.

 

Initially it was a high-quality (but expensive) publication, featuring full-colour art on the cover and on many of the inside pages, and was printed on coated paper. 

 

I always viewed this as more of a Magazine as it had that feel to it as opposed to a comic.  It might have something to do with the high colour and high quality of the paper.  For this reason I decided to put this in the magazine section and not the comic section.

 

 

 

Issue 1

20th February 1971

Issue 2

27th February 1971

Issue 3

6th March 1971

Issue 4

 13th March 1971

Issue 5

20th March 1971

Issue 6

27th March 1971

Issue 7

3rd April 1971

Issue 8

10th April 1971

Issue 9

17th April 1971

Issue 10

24th April 1971

Issue 11

1st May 1971

Issue 12

8th May 1971

Issue 13

15th May 1971

Issue 17

12th June 1971

Issue 14

22nd May 1971

Issue 18

19th June 1971

Issue 15

29th May 1971

Issue 19

26th June 1971

Issue 16

5th June 1971

Issue 20

3rd July 1971

Free Space Poster

In Issue 19 there was a Free Space Poster (Part 1) given away.  Part 2 of the poster came with Issue 20.  These two parts built into a Free Large Poster which looked at what Space Exploration would be like in the year 1988.  Looking at it now we are way behind what we were going to achieve.

Issue 21

10th July 1971

Issue 25

7th August 1971

Issue 29

4th September 1971

Issue 22

17th July 1971

Issue 23

24th July 1971

Issue 26

14th August 1971

Issue 27

21st August 1971

Issue 30

11th September 1971

Issue 31

18th September 1971

Issue 24

31st July 1971

Issue 28

28th August 1971

Issue 32

25th September 1971

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